


If I Wait Long Enough Now (Will You Come to Me)

by wright_or_wrong



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 08:44:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10356606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wright_or_wrong/pseuds/wright_or_wrong
Summary: Of course, his reasons for taking the fall aren’t as selfless or noble as she probably believes either. The simple truth is that there’s some part of him that needs to do it --  has to do something for her, make some kind of gesture, however stupid and clumsy -- or he might lose his mind.Jeff gets himself into some hot water when he tries to help Annie out of a jam. Post-S5.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I am still working on What We Don't Know, I swear, but the next chapter is a pretty important one and I didn't want to rush the writing and not do it justice.
> 
> Bethany's birthday was last weekend, though, and I really wanted to get something new finished for her because she is as kind, thoughtful, generous, and amazing as they come and really deserves an entire mountain of fic in honor. With time being short, I couldn't manage a mountain so I decided to finally complete a story that I started the summer after S5 and could never find a way to finish. Honestly, it wouldn't even be finished now if it wasn't for Bethany because not only did her birthday inspire me, she even beta-ed this thing (and it was just about the roughest thing you can imagine when she got her hands on it, believe me) and worked all of her usual magic ... and then some. If you enjoy this story, it's all thanks to Bethany. <3
> 
> I should also mention that this story was actually the result of a prompt that I received back on Tumblr that summer after S5, though I can't remember now who sent it. I apologize for that, but thank you to that kind person for getting this fic off the ground.
> 
> And once again, a big happy birthday -- and thank you! -- to Bethany.

-x-

She knows that it’s crazy.

She knows that even before she drops her bag to the ground and plucks the bobby pin from her hair, because Annie Edison may be many things, but delusional isn’t one of them -- not since high school, anyway. 

The problem, though, is that knowing it’s crazy isn’t stopping her from doing it.

Because she has no choice, really.

When it comes to stuff like this, she is the only one who ever sees the big picture clearly enough to do what needs to be done. Her friends are always too caught up in small, insignificant stuff: Britta’s current obsession with freeing the turtles in the Biology room, Jeff’s feud with the trainer at his gym who dared to suggest that he’s been neglecting his rhomboids, Abed’s new blog that reviews obscure Scandinavian horror movies that no one outside of Oslo’s probably heard of. And sure, she can get tunnel vision sometimes too, but she is always able to recognize when it’s time to prioritize.

Like now, when the fate of what is still the Save Greendale Committee -- because yeah, it’s several months later, and they haven’t been able to agree on a new name yet -- is at stake.

Or six months ago when the fate of the entire school was on the line.

She refused to throw in the towel then, choosing to fight instead of giving up,or deciding to get married on a whim and making a mockery of the entire institution of marriage in the process.

(Not that she’s still bitter about that; water under the bridge and all that crap.)

So as usual, she’ll do what needs to be done for the good of Greendale while everyone else is off doing something fun or frivolous.

Sure, it might technically be illegal – though is it really breaking and entering if she has a key to the admin building? It’s just the dean’s office that she doesn’t exactly have access to, so it doesn’t seem like a full-fledged B&E – but she’s counting on the fact that she’ll be able to smooth things over with a well-crafted excuse in the event that she does get caught.

Jeff Winger isn’t the only one who can talk his way out of a sticky situation, after all.

And maybe there’s some selfish motivation that has her trying to pick a lock at 11 o’clock at night, but it is mainly for Greendale.

It’s mostly for Greendale anyway.

The really sad thing, she thinks as she crouches in front Dean Pelton’s door with the bobby pin poised at the lock, is that this isn’t even the craziest thing she’s ever done at Greendale.

It might not even be the craziest thing she’s done this week. 

(Letting Britta drag her to that tarot reader for a Psychology of Mysticism class probably beats this, especially considering that there was a minute or two in that dimly lit, incense-heavy room when the things that Sonia the tarot reader was telling her almost made sense, particularly when the cards supposedly asserted that what she wanted most at the moment was absolute change, despite a nagging fear that everything would somehow turn out worse in the end. But then, Annie has tried just about everything to get her life figured out, to decide what she should do and where she should go, and nothing else has panned out, so maybe turning to psychics and palm readers is the only thing left to do.)

But she lets her messenger bag slide off her shoulder onto the floor anyway, and jiggles the bobby pin in the lock, turning it this way and that in the hopes that it’ll catch. It looked so easy in all those YouTube lock picking tutorials she watched, and she breezed through it when she tried the techniques on her bedroom door. She can’t really see what she’s doing in the dark, though, and the lock isn’t cooperating in the slightest so her fingers start to tense up. When she shifts her weight so she can shake the pin a little harder, she only succeeds in knocking her bag over so the thick stack of ballots that she spent two meticulous hours doctoring spills across the floor, not actually jimmying the lock.

“Shit,” she mutters under her breath.

Somehow, she is quiet enough that she can still hear the sudden heavy footsteps in the hallway behind her perfectly well, so she freezes, trying to figure out what to do. 

She could hide under Rhonda’s desk, but she’d have to move the chair and that would probably make too much noise. There’s always the spot behind the filing cabinet, but she wouldn’t have time to grab all the ballots and would probably be found anyway.

She takes too long deciding. When the lights flick on suddenly, all harsh and bright, she finds herself closing her eyes in panic, as if maybe she won’t be seen if she can’t see anything herself. That was always the tactic that she employed when she and Anthony played hide-and-seek as kids and she knew he was about to find her.

Predictably, it works just as well as it did fifteen years ago, because she hears a throat being cleared behind her – and it may take a long, agonizing moment but she realizes, with a prickly jolt to her stomach, that it’s not a security guard or a janitor or even the dean himself who’s found her.

It’s Jeff freaking Winger.

When she turns her head and opens her eyes, there he is, wearing a vaguely disapproving expression and the same tight blue sweater that she might have taken a minute or two to admire earlier in the day. 

He shakes his head in clear disappointment, but the corner of his mouth lifts in an almost-smile. “ _Seriously_ , Annie?”

She doesn’t know why he’s acting surprised. If he’s on campus at 10:47 on a Tuesday night, it’s precisely because he expected to find her here, in this very spot, doing this very thing. Which means that even though he was busy typing away on his phone and looking thoroughly bored during the entire committee meeting this afternoon, he was actually listening to her.

And maybe there’s a quick flutter of something like hope or giddiness in her chest when she considers the fact that there were several other people in the room who heard her voice the same concerns about Annie Kim and the election, but Jeff is the only one who knew what she would do and bothered showing up to help -- or talk her out of it.

Mostly, though, she’s annoyed that she is apparently _that_ predictable and easy to read, and that he persists in seeing her as some damsel in distress who needs rescuing.

Possibly she’s a little confused, too. Why is he going to all this trouble when his real interests very obviously lie elsewhere?

“I don’t remember asking for your help,” she says primly, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “So you can just be on your way.” She shoos him with a flick of her wrist, trying to play it cool. 

It probably doesn’t make much sense to feel as irritated with him as she does right now, but she rides the emotion without guilt. For months now, he’s been acting strangely. He’s been handling her with kid gloves, like he’s afraid that she might shatter into a million pieces if he makes just one wrong move, and she’s pretty sure it can all be traced back to that day last spring when they almost lost Greendale and Jeff decided that Britta was the person he wanted to spend the end of the world with. If that’s the case, the cautious way he’s been treating her is the result of some kind of misplaced pity and guilt. And if that’s the best he has to offer her, that leaves her feeling angry, embarrassed, and immeasurably sad.

She’s told herself over and over that it’s silly to be so upset about it, that he still loves her in his own way; that no matter what stupid teen soap operas and predictable romantic comedies might try to sell, romantic love isn’t any more meaningful or important than friendship. But then he looks at her with that mopey, guilty face or speaks to her in a low, careful voice, and she feels a strange sense of loss that she doesn’t fully understand.

For weeks now, she’s wanted to pull him aside and explain that she’s fine, that he doesn’t need to worry about her because she’s been through worse, more difficult things in her life than unrequited love and she has always been able to fend for herself.

She doesn’t need him to protect her. 

Sure, it’ll still hurt whenever she lets herself think about it -- because Jeff might not really want Britta, but clearly he doesn’t want her either – but time makes everything easier. She expects it’ll all feel like ancient history any day now.

Of course, her indifferent brush-off when she is acting so shady isn’t enough to send him away now. If she’s honest, she really doesn’t expect him to go, because she knows that she wouldn’t if their positions were reversed. Sure enough, he only steps closer, squatting down behind her so he can peer over her shoulder at the uncooperative lock.

When he laughs, she is absolutely certain that she isn’t going to be able to control her temper.

“This isn’t an episode of Scooby Doo, Annie. A hair pin’s not going to open that door.”

“It could,” she insists, a little petulantly. “I just need a few more minutes to...”

She jiggles the pin with desperation, willing it to magically open the door so she can save face, prove something to herself and to him, even if she isn’t sure what exactly that is. Behind her, Jeff sighs and she feels his breath ghost over her neck with tempting warmth. She works hard to resist the urge to elbow him right in the gut.

“You really think this is worth it?” he asks. “The possibility that you’ll get caught and thrown off the committee? Or possibly suspended and your financial aid taken away… or worst-case scenario, thrown out of Greendale completely?”

She has asked herself those questions already over the course of the evening, but somehow, hearing him voice them makes all of it that much more real. She exhales wearily, sinking down until she is sitting on the floor in a pretty undignified heap.

“Jeff, you know I’m right about this. Annie Kim doesn’t want to join the committee because she genuinely cares about the school. She’s just doing it to stick it to me.”

He nods slowly, like he’s weighing each of her words carefully. “That’s probably true.”

“We can’t let her make a mockery of the whole thing. We can’t let her just--”

“Annie,” he interrupts with a laugh. “ _I’m_ on the committee – doesn't that already make it a mockery?”

“You’re not on the committee for the sole purpose of screwing anyone over, Jeff.” She narrows her eyes at him. “Besides, you can protest all you want, but you love this place as much as anyone.”

When he looks away, studying the threadbare carpeting beneath them, she rolls her eyes. She doesn’t know why he still insists on pretending that Greendale doesn’t matter to him. He’s not fooling anyone, not when it was obviously the strength of his feelings for this place that allowed him to restart Borchert’s computer all those months ago.

But that’s hardly the point – doing the right thing for the committee now is all that matters.

“And besides,” she continues. “Annie Kim took a two-year leave of absence from Greendale. Who knows what sort of stuff she was up to during that time?”

Jeff chuckles again, shifting a little closer to her. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t as nefarious as the things you’re imagining. For all we know, she tried to start a painfully earnest law firm and flamed out. Or gave pharmaceutical sales a try, only to realize that she’s so much better than that…”

Against her will, her cheeks get a little hot – but she studiously ignores the flush, rattling the doorknob uselessly to distract herself. “Oh, please,” she sighs. “It doesn’t really matter what she was doing anyway. Because whatever it was, she wasn’t _here_ , in the trenches last spring, saving this place from five-dollar foot longs and barbecue ranch dressing. So she doesn’t _deserve_ a spot on the committee. Especially not to replace Shirley. That’s just …”

She trails off, not sure exactly what it is. They’re all still feeling the loss of Shirley pretty acutely, especially with Pierce gone and Troy halfway around the world. Jeff nods solemnly and reaches out to brush her hand off the knob, turning it as ineffectively as she just did.

“So what’s your plan exactly?” he asks.

She takes a deep breath and lifts her chin defiantly – she’s ready for a fight, ready for him to try to talk her out of this, but she’s not about to give in easily.

“I’m going to break into the dean’s office so I can sort through the ballot box and take out a bunch for Annie Kim… because it’s not like she’s run an ethical campaign anyway. I have it on good authority that she’s been bribing people for votes.” She lifts a handful of the ballots from the floor beside her. “And I’ll stuff in these for Garrett. I know he’s pretty much useless, but at least he genuinely cares about this place.”

Jeff cocks his head, like he’s not sure that he really agrees with her assessment. When he scans her face then, she doesn’t know what answers he’s looking for exactly, but he must find them because he nods eventually and his mouth lifts in what’s either a reluctant smile or a know-it-all smirk.

“I still don’t think you’re gonna get in with just a bobby pin.”

She glances down at her hand, where the stretched metal hair clip is still pinched between her fingers. “I already tried a credit card. That didn’t work at all.”

He pushes himself upright and holds a hand out to help her up too. She grabs the rest of the doctored ballots from the floor as she rises, clutching them to her chest.

“Okay,” Jeff says. “Let’s see…”

He turns the knob once more, like it just might open now with the right touch – she rolls her eyes again even though she’s standing behind him where he can’t see her – and then he jiggles it a little, just in case it needs a little more coaxing, but that proves just as ineffective as her steady work with the bobby pin.

“I tried all of that too,” she points out, and her tone might be a little snide, which probably isn’t warranted considering he’s here, helping her out, but she can’t help it.

“I know, I know. Give me a sec.”

He takes a step back, almost bumping into her, but he surges forward almost immediately, slamming his shoulder, hard and desperate, against the door – which doesn’t give at all.

“Jeff,” she nearly gasps. “Be careful.”

He grits out a smile somehow, rolling his shoulder a little and shaking out his arm. “I’m fine. But this thing is stronger than it looks.”

She sighs, and there’s some part of her that wonders if she should just give up. Jeff thinks that she’s being idiotic anyway – why not cut her losses and get out of here before it all blows up in her face?

Apparently, Jeff doesn’t feel quite as defeated as she does, though, because he turns to her and juts his chin toward the other side of the room.

“Step back,” he orders, and she obeys without thinking. Even in the near darkness, she can see the determined look in his eyes that leaves her unable to argue.

Barely ten seconds later, he’s trying to kick down the door like the misunderstood, tortured hero in some short-on-plot action movie. She hates herself a little for how breathless she gets, how turned on the show of brute strength has her, but she quickly gets over it when the door actually gives way and then all she can do is squeal in delight.

“You did it!”

He looks back at her with a grin, and asks, “What can’t I do?” She assumes it’s a rhetorical question, but she’s too busy examining the busted lock and door frame to scold him for his arrogance.

“But look at the damage,” she says. “They’re totally going to know someone broke in.”

“This place is a dump, Annie. As long as none of the dean’s costumes are missing, no one’s going to notice anything.”

She isn’t entirely convinced, but she hurries inside the office as Jeff holds the busted door open for her. The ballot box is right there, on the corner of the dean’s desk, like it’s just waiting for her. She has it open and is sorting through the votes in a matter of seconds, taking out every fourth one for Annie Kim and replacing each with two for Garrett. 

She shoves the Annie Kim ballots back at Jeff. “We’ll have to burn those.”

Jeff chuckles, shuffling the papers into a neat pile. “You’re a defense attorney’s dream.”

“Well, we don’t want to leave a paper trail. And I mean that literally.”

“Of course not,” he agrees, but it looks like he is holding back a laugh. “I bet if we’d murdered someone, you’d already have the perfect place to dump the body.”

“Actually,” she says, as innocently as she can manage. “If my forensics classes have taught me anything, it’s that it’s better to dissolve a body in acid or lye. Less to get rid of that way.”

Jeff narrows his eyes, appraising her carefully. “I don’t know if I should be horrified or impressed…”

She doesn’t bother to hide her grin because catching Jeff off-guard is just way too much fun to pretend otherwise, and he smiles back her as she hands over the last batch of Annie Kim ballots. For a minute, they just stare at one another in the dean’s dark office, and time does that strange thing that it often does when Jeff looks at her in just the right way, simultaneously slowing down and speeding up until this single moment together is the only thing that seems to exist. He takes a step toward her and she moves closer to him without even thinking about it, like a reflex that she can’t control. Nothing is going to happen because nothing ever happens, but for those few breathless seconds, just the possibility that lingers in the air is enough to set her blood humming.

Until there’s a triumphant little laugh from somewhere behind them and they turn in unison to find Dean Pelton wearing a jacket over a pair of polka-dotted pajamas, and Annie Kim, who is dressed impeccably despite the hour, with her arms crossed haughtily over her chest.

“What did I tell you, Dean?” she crows.

The dean studies them intently for a moment, head cocked, and Annie finds herself unable to move at all. Jeff has somehow managed a bland, almost disinterested expression, like all of this is about to bore him to tears.

“This certainly does look rather incriminating,” the dean says. “Though it was pretty dark in here so maybe they were just…” He narrows his eyes and studies the pair once more. “What do you two have to say for yourselves?”

Annie manages a glance over at Jeff, who still isn’t giving much away. “This isn’t what it looks like,” she lies feebly. “I mean, I can explain everything. It’s just—“

“Annie doesn’t have anything to do with this, so I should explain, actually,” Jeff declares, stepping in front of her even as she grabs at his sleeve to try to pull him back. “Because it was all my idea.”

-x-

Over the years, he’s developed a hard and fast rule for life at Greendale that’s served him pretty well: take less than one percent of the things that happen around this loony place seriously.

Because someone – himself included, he can admit; Greendale craziness is like an airborne contagion -- is always going off the deep end about something trivial, nonsensical, or completely irrational. Getting caught up in the wake of that sort of drama is the kind of hassle that Jeff Winger has spent the better part of his life avoiding.

Craig’s mock trial definitely falls into that category.

“It’s the perfect opportunity for your students to see the justice system in action, Jeffrey,” he insisted. “And an easy way to get Annie Kim off my back at the same time.”

Of course, he left out the part about wanting to pull his robe and wig out of storage, though it was obvious that was at least half of his motivation – until Annie Kim insisted that the dean couldn’t be objective, given his close relationship with Jeff. That meant he had to lend his costume to Duncan, who Annie Kim either didn’t realize was also a friend of Jeff’s, or saw as too much of a loose cannon due to the whole being drunk-off-his-ass-most-of-the-time thing to really play favorites.

And really, Duncan appears to be taking it all about as seriously as Jeff is, with the not-so-discreet way he keeps reaching into his borrowed robe for a flask and drifting off to sleep with the gavel propping up his chin, so it’s more than likely that he’ll preside over the whole thing based solely on his whims in a given moment than any sense of loyalty or friendship.

The fairness of the proceedings already seems to be in question anyway, considering that Garrett is serving as bailiff despite the fact that he’s personally invested in the resolution of this whole mess himself.

That’s the thing, though – Jeff isn’t particularly concerned about the outcome. Even if he’s found “guilty” of trying to rig the committee election, it’s not like anything will actually happen to him. Craig isn’t going to fire him or dock his pay. The most that’ll happen is he’ll get suspended from the committee for a while and have to take a few weeks off from meetings Really, that’d be more of a reward than a punishment – which is why he sits calmly at the defendant’s table, smirking in amusement as the “prosecution” demands that Dean Pelton explain what he saw on the night in question for the second time.

“And you saw Mr. Winger with the ballots in his hand?” the lead prosecutor asks. “Caught him red-handed, you might say?”

He shoots a smarmy grin in Duncan’s direction, trying way too hard to curry favor in the room, and even the dean seems charmed by his antics for a moment. In Jeff’s estimation, Chad’s enjoying the proceedings a little too much – probably because last semester, he wasted a hell of a lot of time grade-grubbing in Jeff’s Fundamentals of Law class, only to wind up with a B-, and even then, Jeff thought he was being generous because the kid was as obnoxious and petty as they came.

Of course, he’s also – probably not coincidentally – Annie Kim’s new boyfriend, so he’s got motivation on all sides for raking Jeff over the coals.

“Well,” the dean says. “I suppose you could say that I caught Jeffrey red-handed, yes. But he explained that the committee was concerned about ballot tampering so he was just going to do an informal audit to make sure there wasn’t any funny business going on.”

Chad cocks his head, squinting thoughtfully in Jeff’s direction. “But if he thought there was something unethical going on with the ballots, shouldn’t he have voiced his concerns formally? Doing it in the dark of night makes it seem like something Mr. Winger didn’t want anyone to know about. You know, because it seems like the way someone might behave if _he_ was the one tampering with ballots...”

“Oh, you know, I think Jeff just didn’t want to embarrass anyone,” the dean says. “Embarrass Greendale, really. I’m not sure you’re aware of how much this place means to him. He played a major part in saving the school from Subway last year, you know.”

Chad nods dismissively, taking a step closer to the dean. “And what was Ms. Edison’s role in all of this?”

For the first time all afternoon, Jeff tenses a little. He knows that Annie is sitting directly behind him, with Abed and Britta on either side of her, but he resists the urge to look over his shoulder, to search her face for any sign of what she’s feeling at the moment. She’s the weak link in all of this, the one most likely to spill the truth even if it means screwing herself over in the process.

Convincing her to let him take the fall for this whole thing has been a constant, daily struggle, despite the fact that she has considerably more at stake than he does. That’s the thing about Annie: she can be as ruthless as anyone when she really wants something, and she dislikes Annie Kim with an intensity that both amuses and intrigues him, but she has a conscience as sensitive as the princess with her damn pea when it comes to her friends. He knows she feels guilty that he’s answering for what was all her crazy idea.

Of course, his reasons for taking the fall aren’t as selfless or noble as she probably believes either. 

The simple truth is that there’s some part of him that needs to do it -- has to do _something_ for her, make some kind of gesture, however stupid and clumsy -- or he might lose his mind.

Ever since he hooked himself up to Borchert’s computer and managed to free them just because of the strength of his feelings for her, he’s been brimming with something that he doesn’t quite know what to do with. And if he doesn’t find a safe, harmless way to channel it, he’s afraid of what he might do. He’s been living in this weird paradoxical state where he wants to keep a safe distance from her, and at the same time stop her from drifting any further from him than it already seems like she has. His head is starting to ache from the strain of it all.

So although he’d want to help her out under any circumstances, now it’s even more important, like it’s the only way to feel what he feels without making a total ass of himself.

Because, honestly, he’s been doing this kind of crap for her for years.

He should probably be doing more, though. He probably should have taken it upon himself to fix the whole damn thing before she even got herself involved. Then he could have claimed responsibility without Annie having to feel an ounce of guilt.

Because that’s probably the kind of thing that people do when they care about someone,even if they’re too much of a fucking coward to actually tell them or act on those feelings -- because, you know, you can’t screw anything up if you don’t try; you can’t lose anyone if you don’t risk anything.

But it all happened too quickly for him to really get on top of it. When the dean first informed the committee that a new student would be elected by student body to replace Shirley, instead of unofficially appointed by him, none of them objected. Maybe they tend to be in a self-absorbed world of their own most of the time, but even they can understand how some of the other students might be annoyed with the perceived favoritism – all right, technically, not really _perceived_ ; they were the dean’s favorites without question – that they’d received over the years and want someone on the committee who represented the rest of Greendale’s interests.

Even Annie hadn’t been overly concerned about the prospect of a new committee member since it all ran through her anyway, until Annie Kim made her triumphant return to Greendale and zeroed in on the committee post as a way to stick it to his Annie in the name of their (apparently) still smoldering feud.

If he was honest, it was pretty obvious from the start that Annie wasn’t just being paranoid. Annie Kim’s motivations were as transparent as a damn piece of glass, what with the way she directed every word of her campaign speech right at Annie’s scowling face. Not to mention the way she kept not-so-subtly implying that the committee’s present leadership was woefully inefficient, which was obviously bullshit considering that Greendale was actually in better shape than it had been when she disappeared a couple of years back.

And then all of a sudden – and not so coincidentally -- there were more than a few students on campus flashing unlimited Panera gift cards, right on the heels of Annie Kim bragging about having an aunt who owned a franchise a few towns over, so he was also pretty sure that his Annie wasn’t exaggerating when she insisted that Annie Kim was exchanging bribes for votes. It’s not like he particularly cared, on moral grounds, about people bucking the system when he’d spent years doing just that himself. But he didn’t like Annie Kim, and _his_ Annie was upset, which was more than enough reason to get annoyed.

Of course, when Annie implored the rest of the committee to do something about it, her pleas fell on deaf ears, so he knew she was desperate enough to do something reckless on her own.

That wasn’t really a new thing, though.

For the past few months, she’s seemed stubbornly determined to do everything on her own, rebuffing any offer of help with a tight smile and a curt, “It’s fine. I’ve got it.” Including that time she insisted on lugging an armful of boxes that probably weighed more than she did from the dean’s office to the storage room in the facilities building all by herself, and wound up with a sprained ankle for her trouble.

But then, he thinks, maybe it isn’t all help that she’s had a problem with lately. Maybe she’s just been refusing help from him.

That is probably why he didn’t confront her the other day when he knew she was going to do something stupid. He just showed up, with no advance warning, so she’d have no choice but to accept his assistance, however ineffective, when he offered it.

Of course, when Craig and Annie Kim found them there in the dark office, all he could come up with was some unconvincing story about the committee being worried about ballot tampering and him wanting to make sure everything was on the up and up. Annie had stood silently beside him the whole time, head bent like she couldn’t quite stomach the lie, so maybe her instincts are dead on.

Maybe she _is_ better off without his kind of help.

“Annie?” the dean says now, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Well, she was apparently there to talk to Jeff out of it. Because, as you pointed out, a formal investigation probably would have been the best way to handle the whole situation.”

Chad nods slowly. “So Ms. Edison is usually able to talk Mr. Winger out of things?”

The dean squints, like he’s a little confused by the question. On the bench, Duncan discreetly tries to sneak another sip from his flask, and it seems impossible that this whole thing could be become any more of a joke.

“I suppose,” the dean murmurs. “They’ve always been very—“

“Objection!”

Jeff jerks upright in his seat as his “representation” suddenly seems to wake up and realize what’s going on around her. If he’s honest, he’d kind of forgotten that she was even beside him at all. 

For some reason, it was surprisingly difficult to find someone willing to serve as his defense. 

Well, maybe not that surprising, actually. 

That he was essentially caught in the act doesn’t exactly make it an easy case to handle, no matter how plausible his cover story might be, but he’s willing to admit that the fact that most of his students aren’t exactly crazy about him probably had a little something to do with it too.

But the dean had insisted that he couldn’t represent himself, and while Annie offered to do it, even though she’s not taking a law class, because the guilt was obviously getting to her, he knew that she’d give herself up in an instant if the case started on a downward spiral, which meant she wasn’t a viable option.

So he wound up with Maya, a quiet, nervous girl who he suspects only volunteered because she feels indebted to him after last semester when she came to him the day before the final with some sob story about how she’d just broken up with her girlfriend and was too heartbroken to study. She’d cried all over his favorite cashmere sweater, so he’d awkwardly patted her on the shoulder and told her she could do the final as a take-home exam as long as she didn’t tell anyone else in the class. 

Apparently, she saw that as a supreme act of kindness when really, it was just the fastest way to get rid of her.

Still, he’d told her before the trial started that she shouldn’t feel any pressure – the evidence was kind of stacked against him and he didn’t particularly care about the outcome – but she’s been swigging from a bottle of Pepto-Bismol during every break in the action and nervously bouncing her knee beneath the table like she’s worried that she’s going to get him sent to death row.

“Ms. Edison’s ability to talk my client out of something isn’t really germane to the case,” Maya declares. Jeff isn’t really sure why she’s objecting to this particular line of questioning when Chad’s already been on more blatant fishing expeditions today, but she seems pretty proud of herself so he offers up an encouraging smile.

“I’m just trying to establish why she might have been there,” Chad says testily. “If there might have been another reason beyond talking Mr. Winger out of whatever it is he was doing.”

“But how would Dean Pelton even be able to answer that question? He’d just be speculating.”

“As someone who’s spent quite a bit of time with Mr. Winger and Ms. Edison over the years, Dean Pelton could tell us, in his experience, what—“

“But that’s just conjecture, so it isn’t—“

“He’s a character witness who can—“

“Enough!” Duncan bellows from behind the bench where he’s fallen into a disinterested slump. “This is starting to bore me. Move on, please.” He lets out an exaggerated sigh and shifts in his seat, grimacing slightly. “On second thought, let’s take another five-minute recess. I need to use the facilities…”

Duncan stands abruptly and starts to stumble toward the exit, while Maya drops back in her chair, looking more than a little defeated. 

Jeff shoots her a grin and shrugs. “I think it’s going pretty well.”

She raises a skeptical brow. “Really?”

“Sure. Besides... what did I tell you? There’s no pressure here.”

“I know, but I just want to…”

She trails off because apparently something just past Jeff’s shoulder has caught her attention. He turns, and there’s Annie, approaching the table with a look that conveys pure misery. She tilts her head, offering up a trembling smile that he finds himself matching without any conscious thought – until he notices Maya looking back and forth between them almost suspiciously, and he drops his gaze to the floor.

“Maybe I should take the stand,” Annie says. “I know you think it’s a bad idea, but it might actually—“

“Annie. We talked about this. It’s not necessary.”

“It might help,” Maya chimes in. “You know, back up the assertion that you broke in for all the right reasons.”

Annie nods in agreement, crossing her arms over her chest to show that she means business. 

“Ladies,” he says, with a laugh. “It really isn’t necessary, okay?”

Annie frowns, and it’s obvious that she wants to argue the point. Instead, though, she looks over her shoulder at the other side of the room where Chad and Annie Kim are whispering conspiratorially, like they’re plotting world domination, not how to win some stupid community-college mock trial.

“I’m actually surprised that the prosecution didn’t call me as a witness,” she says. “You know Annie Kim would just love to pin all of this on me.”

“Yeah,” Jeff agrees. “But I think her boyfriend hates me a little more than he loves her, so he’s following his own agenda here.”

“Which is to destroy you, pretty much,” Maya not-so-helpfully supplies. He knows that kind of talk is only going to make Annie feel worse, but he reins in the urge to tell Maya to shut up, and puts all his energy into projecting an air of unwavering confidence that will reassure both of them.

“Come on, guys. There’s no need to worry. When we reconvene, I’m going to take the stand and we all know I’ll charm the pants off the jury. I’ll have them eating out of the palm of my hand in no time…”

Annie bites her lip, looking pretty damn dubious, and he’d be seriously insulted if he didn’t know that she’s running mainly on guilt right now. “There’s a reason why most defense attorneys don’t have clients testify on their own behalf, Jeff.”

Maya frowns, nodding wearily. “That’s true, Mr. Winger. It’s probably not a good idea… Maybe we should change tactics. Maybe we have Annie take the--”

“You know, Maya,” he drawls. “I could really use some caffeine to perk me up before we start again. Would you mind getting me a coffee?”

She sighs, probably because she realizes that she can’t talk him out of testifying, and conjures up a weak smile. “Black with one packet of Stevia in the Raw, right?”

He nods, watching as she rises from her seat and heads for the door. He waits until she’s gone before looking back at Annie, who’s still wearing a worried expression and very clearly needs some convincing of her own.

“See?” he says. “That’s how charming I am. She isn’t attracted to me in the least, but I’ve still got her wrapped around my finger.”

Annie squints in confusion, looking toward where Maya just disappeared.

“She’s a lesbian,” he explains. “So this…” He waves a hand at his face. “Doesn’t do anything for her.”

That’s apparently not enough to reassure Annie, though, because she just rolls her eyes.

“This isn’t about how charming you are, Jeff. It’s about…” She sighs, lifting her shoulders tiredly. “I don’t know what it’s about, actually. I just feel bad that you’re doing this. Taking the fall for me…”

It’s as good a moment as any to tell her why he’s doing it, why he _wants_ to do it, why he _has_ to do it, why he’d do any number of things for her that he’d never dream of doing for anyone else, but his hands start to shake a little just at the thought. He has to curl them over his knees to keep steady and pretend that none of this means anything.

“We’ve been through this, Annie,” he tells her. “What’s going to happen to me even if they decide I was tampering? Nothing. Barely a slap on the wrist. And what’ll happen to you? Something a lot worse … because Annie Kim’ll insist on it. So it’s not like there’s really a choice here.” He shrugs. “I mean, it’s not like I’m making some big sacrifice.”

She exhales slowly and lowers her head to contemplate her feet for a long, uneasy moment. He wants to know what she’s thinking pretty badly, but he’s not about to show his hand by asking her. When she finally looks up, she’s smiling softly, in that way that always seems to hit him right in the center of his chest.

“Britta thinks that you’re doing it because you have a God complex.”

It’s his turn to roll his eyes. “What the hell does Britta know?”

Annie smiles, fighting off a laugh. “It doesn’t really matter anyway,” she says. “Because whatever the reason, I hope you know how much I appreciate it. I know you hate putting any more effort than is absolutely necessary into … well, anything… so I know what it means.”

Something cold and anxious coils in his gut, because she doesn’t really know what it means. She doesn’t know what most of it has meant for years now, and everything about that feels wrong. For months, she’s felt distant in a way that he can’t remember ever feeling before, and he hates it, but he doesn’t know what to do to get her back.

Or he does, but he’s too terrified to actually do it.

“That’s not really…” He shakes his head, trying to pull himself together. “I’m doing it because I—“

“Two more minutes,” Garrett shrieks almost directly in his ear, having suddenly reappeared in the courtroom to carry out his bailiff duties.

Jeff sighs, losing whatever momentum he might have found. People are starting to file back into the room around them, and that’s enough to get Annie turning back toward her seat.

But she stops suddenly and gives him a little half-wave.

“Good luck,” she mouths.

Somehow, he manages to wave back.

-x-

She has to hand it to Jeff – when he’s right, he’s right.

From her seat just behind the defense table, Annie watches him win over the jury, a group of students that she knows from firsthand experience don’t particularly like him, without breaking even the lightest of sweats. The fact that he’s managed to turn the tide in just the few minutes that he’s been on the stand makes the whole thing even more impressive, so maybe he is right about everything. Maybe his charm and smooth talk are all it’ll take to get them both off the hook.

She may not physically be sitting beside him, answering for the break-in -- the poor planning of which was all her doing -- but she’s there with him in spirit, considering the way that the guilt is lodged heavy and hard in her chest. She isn’t entirely sure why he’s doing this for her: because he always jumps into a protective big-brother role with her, because he’s been carrying around his own guilt where she’s concerned ever since that day back in April when their world turned upside down, or because he just can’t resist the opportunity to play hero one more time? She tells herself that it doesn’t really matter anyway.

He’s a friend, so he is just doing what friends do.

Still, she can’t shake her nerves as she sits in the makeshift courtroom. She plays with the hem of her sweater, twisting it between her fingers as she sneaks a glance at Abed on one side of her, a notebook open in his lap where he’s presumably taking notes on the trial, and Britta on the other, scrolling through her Instagram feed on her phone with a supremely bored look on her face, and tries to convince herself that there is nothing to worry about.

Jeff’s former student Maya is asking all the right questions, even if Annie is certain that she would have done a better job herself, but it doesn’t really matter what she’s saying. It’s the way that Jeff answers that makes all the difference, with that slightly crooked, winning smile and that knowing gleam in his eye that has everyone in the jury box hanging on his every word.

She wonders if maybe it’s easier to like Jeff Winger if you don’t really know him that well; when all of the insecurities, doubts, and old wounds that sometimes make him seem like the most selfish, thoughtless, shallow person on the face of planet are hidden beneath a super-shiny, super-attractive façade.

But then again, knowing who he is, down at heart, does make a pretty big difference itself. Because knowing that he’s full of it at least ninety-five percent of the time makes those rare occasions when he does let his guard down feel like some kind of gift.

On the stand, Jeff tells some stupid, cheesy joke that has most of the courtroom laughing, but she frowns down at her lap. She reminds herself for the hundredth time over the past six months that she’s got to stop analyzing everything he does for deeper meaning, that she’s got to stop giving him the benefit of the doubt, that she has to take whatever she feels for him beyond friendship and leave it firmly and definitively in the past.

Maybe his feelings for Britta aren’t that deep, and maybe the stupid engagement thing was just the manifestation of a whole lot of fear and panic and didn’t really mean anything. But it does mean something that it wasn’t _her_ that he chose to panic with, so harboring even the tiniest bit of hope that he’s going to wake up one day and realize that he wants her is just silly.

But it’s nearly impossible to get over someone when he’s around all the time, breathing down her proverbial – and sometimes literal – neck. 

He shifts in his seat on the stand and shoots a particularly devastating smile in her general direction. “But that’s just how important Greendale is to me,” he declares, resting a hand over the center of his chest. “And the idea that our students’ votes wouldn’t be honored, well, I just couldn’t live with myself if I sat back and let that happen.”

He is laying it on so thick that Britta rolls her eyes and makes a low gagging sound. Annie can’t help smiling, though, because the jury and plenty of the observers seem eager to buy his song and dance.

“Thank you, Mr. Winger,” Maya says. “That’s all the questions I have for this witness.”

Duncan’s head lolls up and down listlessly in a drunken nod. “Okay, fine.” He lifts a shaky hand in the direction of the prosecution’s table. “You’re up, Biff.”

Chad Campbell rises from his seat, and the gleeful look on his face as he approaches the witness stand makes it pretty obvious that he’s licking his chops at the chance to take a run at Jeff – which means Jeff is probably right yet again. It isn’t Chad’s love for Annie Kim that’s got on him on a mission right now. He just hates Jeff, plain and simple.

She twists the hem of her sweater a little tighter, her fingertips starting to go numb.

“So you broke into Dean Pelton’s office to check the ballots because you care so much about Greendale?” he says, rather blandly. “That’s your story?”

Jeff leans back in his chair, still smiling. “That’s what happened. Yeah.”

Chad nods, pacing slowly in front of the stand. “And I guess we have no choice but to believe you. I mean, you did save the school from Subway just last spring.”

Jeff makes a noncommittal humming sound, which is strange because he hasn’t really shied away from taking credit for the whole saving Greendale thing much in the past few months. Chad stops pacing suddenly, turns, and then, for one long, unnerving moment, he meets Annie’s eyes directly. She lets go of the edge of her sweater and it falls unevenly, all stretched out, across her lap.

“Tell me something,” Chad says, spinning to face Jeff again. “What exactly is the nature of your relationship with Ms. Edison?”

Jeff shifts in his chair, brow furrowed in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“Annie Edison.” Chad holds his arm out in her direction and her cheeks instantly warm as everyone at this ridiculous trial suddenly decides that she is the most interesting thing in the room. “How would you characterize your relationship with her?”

Jeff laughs and shakes his head almost indulgently, like he is more amused by the question than anything else. Annie looks away, staring at her lap again even as she feels both Abed and Britta studying her with concern and curiosity. Part of her wants to yell that they’re nothing, nothing at all, so everyone would just give it a rest for once – but that kind of scene would only make things so much worse. 

So she takes a deep breath and counts to ten in her head, willing herself to relax again.

“We’re friends,” Jeff is saying, and she’s heard that line from him enough times that it barely has any effect anymore.

“Good friends?” Chad prods.

When she risks a look at Jeff, he is clenching his jaw, no longer amused, so it’s obvious that he’s as tired of all these questions as she is.

“Yeah. Good friends.”

“Best friends?”

That question earns an actual laugh from Jeff, who leans back in his chair with that air of haughtiness that he always wears well. “We’re not ten-year-old girls, so we’ve never exchanged heart-shaped necklaces or anything official like that.”

The jury, Duncan, and most of the observers chuckle along with him, and Chad even smiles for a minute, though it doesn’t seem like he’s particularly entertained. Annie gets the distinct feeling that the little worm is preparing to go in for the kill – though what exactly that means, she isn’t sure.

“I guess what I’m asking is, how your relationship with Ms. Edison differs from your relationships with other friends?” Chad says. “Like Mr. Nadir or Ms. Perry, for example.”

Jeff looks over at Maya, who -- Annie notes sourly -- is sitting perfectly still at the defense table, like she is just as riveted to the drama that’s unfolding as the rest of the spectators and not actually a participant, and when he realizes that she’s not about to object on his behalf, he turns to Duncan with a cranky expression.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the case. So you should probably bang that gavel.”

“It goes to motivation, actually,” Chad declares. “His relationship with Ms. Edison is central to that.”

Duncan cocks his head thoughtfully -- or possibly, given how often he’s been hitting the flask in his inside jacket pocket, he could also be about to pass out. “I’ll allow it,” he slurs. “Seems like it could be interesting…”

Jeff crosses his arms over his chest, looking defiant and defensive all at once. He agreed to this farce because he was so sure that it would be harmless, maybe even a little amusing, but she’s willing to bet that he is regretting that decision right about now, when he’s getting grilled about his relationship with her yet again. Taking the fall for her probably doesn’t seem worth all this trouble, and, for the hundredth time, she kicks herself for not insisting that he let her take responsibility for all of this.

She shifts forward in her chair, ready to stand up and blurt out the truth, but Jeff’s eyes meet hers across the room suddenly, and she could swear that there’s some faint color high in his cheeks, and she can’t seem to move.

“What was the question again?” he says, glaring back at Chad.

“How is your relationship with Ms. Edison different than those with your other friends?”

“I don’t think it is any different.”

“So you act the same way around all of your friends? You’d do the same things for all of your friends?”

Annie may not be sure where Chad is going with all of this, but it’s obviously nowhere good. She sneaks a quick glance at Abed, whose eyes are narrowed thoughtfully like he’s considering the question very carefully himself, and then a quick peek at Britta, who has her head cocked almost suspiciously, and Annie feels something in her stomach tighten painfully.

“Yeah,” Jeff mumbles. “I would.”

Chad turns back toward the prosecution table, shuffling through a manila folder a little uselessly. When he spins dramatically, she’s pretty sure that it’s a move he borrowed from a binge-watching session of Law & Order.

“Could you please explain what happened last April when Subway was about to take over Greendale?” he asks. “You know, when you and all of your _friends_ were trapped in the old computer lab?”

From the corner of her eye, Annie sees Abed nodding adamantly, like he’s pleased with the direction that the questioning has taken, and Britta leans in to whisper, “Did he ask you about this too?”

All Annie can do is shake her head, because she honestly has no idea what’s going on. She looks over at Maya again, who’s still a statue behind the defense table, and nearly stands up to object herself, because this doesn’t have anything to do with the committee election either.

Jeff obviously feels the same way.

“What does that have to do with any of this?” he protests, sounding crankier by the minute.

Chad doesn’t respond for a long moment, but then Duncan makes a gurgling sound that indicates he should explain himself.

“It goes back to establishing motive.”

Duncan shrugs indifferently. “I’ll allow it.”

He is allowing everything, it seems – partly because he’s drunk enough that he’s zoning out for large portions of the proceedings and partly because when he is coherent enough to understand what’s going on around him, he seems to want as much juicy drama as he can get.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Jeff says. “Subway was going to buy the school. My friends and I tried to find a way to stop the takeover. In the process, we wound up finding Russell Borchert’s old computer lab … and Borchert too. But that’s all common knowledge.”

“And you and your friends got trapped down in the lab, correct?”

“We did. But just for a couple of hours. The computer that controlled the door and lights died so we were stuck.”

“So how did you get out then?”

Jeff shifts in his chair, sitting up a little straighter, and even if she didn’t know him as well as she does, Annie is fairly certain she’d still be able to tell how uncomfortable he is. This part of the saving-Greendale story has remained something of a mystery even over the past few months. He’s never let on as to how exactly he managed to reboot the computer, no matter how often Abed asks or how much Britta needles him. Annie hasn’t asked, because she learned a long time ago not to ask questions that she really doesn’t want to know the answers to.

“We were able to get the computer up and running again,” is what he says now, as vague as ever. “And the door opened.”

“That sounds pretty simple,” Chad drawls, sitting on the edge of the prosecution table. “But I actually spoke to Mr. Borchert, and he explained that what the system needed to restart was -- and I’m quoting him -- a blast of human passion. Is that how he explained it to you at the time?”

“Yeah,” Jeff admits reluctantly. “But let’s be real for a minute here. He’d been living as a hermit for years, without any human interaction. I’m not sure he’s entirely with it, if you know what I mean.”

“But that’s what he told you? That some kind of _passion_ was needed?”

Jeff nods, his lips pursed petulantly, and all Annie can think is that she’s going to have do something pretty spectacular to make all of this up to him.

“So what did you do, Mr. Winger?”

When Jeff cocks his head, there’s something almost defiant about the look in his eyes. “I volunteered to hook myself up to the computer.”

Chad pushes away from the table to pace in front of the stand once again. “ _You_ volunteered to provide the blast of human passion?”

“I volunteered to hook myself up to the computer,” Jeff repeats.

“And then the door opened?”

“It did.”

Annie fidgets in her seat, feeling more than a little anxious -- because she doesn’t have any idea where Annie Kim’s boy toy is going with all of this, but she’s pretty sure that torturing Jeff is the goal. Abed leans in suddenly, bumping his arm against hers.

“This is when it starts to get good,” he whispers.

She furrows her brow, frowning. “What does that mean?” she whispers back.

Abed doesn’t answer, though. He just smiles knowingly and moves his gaze back to the front of the room, which is probably a good thing because Chad goes right back to work without missing a beat.

“So what happened then, Mr. Winger? How did you get the door to open?”

On the stand, Jeff offers up one of his smuggest smiles, like he’s in total control, but he’s tapping his fingers against his knee a little frantically. Annie suspects that he isn’t feeling quite as relaxed as he’d like the room to think.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m not a computer expert... it could’ve been anything. Static electricity or something like that.”

Chad nods. “You’re right. It’s difficult for us non-experts to really put a finger on what happened.” He pauses and glances over at Annie again – maybe she’s just being paranoid, but there’s something decidedly creepy about the way he looks at her, like he knows all of her secrets. “Maybe we should have Mr. Borchert come in and help explain. Maybe he could even bring the computer with him and we could all figure this out together…”

Jeff barks out a humorless laugh. “Okay, seriously, what does any of this have to do with the committee election?” He looks over at Duncan again, who finally seems to have woken up. “Aren’t you going to intercede here?”

Duncan tilts his head thoughtfully. “Actually, I’ve been wondering how you managed to open that door since last spring, Winger. So I think I’ll allow it.”

“You can’t just allow a line of questioning because it’s something you want to hear gossip about.”

“I can,” Duncan declares. “And I did.”

For some reason, Maya decides that this is the finally the perfect time to intervene, after letting Jeff get kicked around for the past five minutes, and jerks to her feet. “Objection!”

“Oh, stop it,” Duncan sighs. “Haven’t we all been dying to know all about Winger’s hero act? Let’s get the scoop once and for all.”

There’s a murmur of interested agreement throughout the courtroom. Even Abed and Britta seem to side with Chad, nodding discreetly. And if Annie’s completely honest, she’d probably be on board with this line of questioning if she didn’t feel quite so guilty about the whole thing.

It’s just not as much fun to see Jeff being interrogated when he’s going through all of this for her.

“Okay,” Chad says. “So you’re no computer expert. But tell me this, Mr. Winger – what did you think was going to happen? I mean, why did you offer to hook yourself up to the computer? You must have thought there was something you could do.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jeff grumbles, and he’s right again, of course, but she finds herself as eager as anyone to hear his response. In the immediate moments after they got out of that basement, she’s pretty sure she assumed that he used his feelings for Britta as fuel to free them, but when their engagement fizzled out without any kind of fanfare, that didn’t seem quite so likely anymore.

So it’s still a mystery.

Of course, Jeff isn’t just going to offer up information that he’s been guarding like buried treasure without a fight. Chad must realize that, because he approaches Duncan behind the bench, leaning an elbow against the edge so he can smirk triumphantly at Jeff.

“I think I’d like permission to treat Mr. Winger as a hostile witness. He’s clearly not willing to—“

“Are you kidding me?” Jeff snaps. “This isn’t a real trial, you’re not a real lawyer, and I’m not a real witness, so that’s just—“

“I don’t know what exactly that means,” Duncan slurs. “But I’m gonna allow it anyway.” He shrugs, as if to say ‘Why not?’ 

Chad grins in triumph. “I’ll repeat the question, Mr. Winger. Why did you offer to hook yourself up to the computer?”

Jeff squirms uncomfortably, though he tries to cover by adjusting his jacket and tie. It’s a stalling tactic too, because he doesn’t seem eager at all to answer.

“I really didn’t think anything would happen,” he says finally.

“Really?” Chad asks, feigning confusion. “Then why bother? I mean, the fate of the school hung in the balance, so you thought you’d waste time indulging the fantasies of a socially-awkward hermit instead of finding a real way to get out of that basement?”

Jeff looks down, studying his lap. “I probably wasn’t thinking clearly. We were kind of desperate at that point.”

“Exactly,” Chad declares, jabbing a finger at Jeff. “You were so desperate that you believed you might have enough passion to jump start the computer just like Borchert suggested.”

Jeff just shrugs, like he honestly has no idea what happened and he’s not holding anything back. And then, for just a second, he looks her way and smirks, as if he’s nothing but amused by the proceedings, but she knows that it’s just for her benefit. Beneath the surface, he is anything but calm, cool, and collected.

“Well, I talked to a couple of the friends you were trapped with, and I asked them how they thought you got the door open,” Chad announces – and just like that, Jeff is utterly panicked, if his clenched jaw and bouncing foot are any indication. “Would you like to hear what they thought?”

“Not particularly,” Jeff says. “Because it’s all just speculation. None of us have any clue what happened.”

For the umpteenth time today, Annie is more than a little confused. Chad never came around asking her what happened in the basement (which is just as well because she doesn’t think she could even hazard a guess). She wonders if maybe he’s making all of this up, trying to catch Jeff in some kind of lie to prove he’s not trustworthy. 

She nudges Britta with her elbow. “Did Chad ask you about this?” she whispers.

Britta nods, leaning closer. “I thought it was pretty weird at the time, but I figured it was just background, character kind of info. And I didn’t think he’d actually use any of it, because I told him I had no idea how Jeff did it.”

Annie looks over at Abed. “Did he ask you too?”

Abed looks her straight in the eye in that unnerving, all-knowing way of his and nods slowly.

“What’d you say?” she asks.

But he only shrugs and turns back to the main attraction. It’s the same way he acts when they’re watching a movie or TV show and she asks what’s going to happen to next. With his knowing, little grin and bright eyes, Chad is clearly savoring whatever is about to happen too, which sets her nerves jangling – and Jeff’s clenching his jaw so hard that she suspects he is feeling the same.

“These are your good friends,” Chad muses. “All of whom you care about _equally_. I would think they have a pretty good idea of what makes you tick, so they could probably make an educated guess about what you did to open the door. Some of them, anyway.” 

Jeff smiles tightly. “But that’s all it would be – a guess.”

“Maybe it would help clear things up for you, though. Put things in perspective.”

This whole fishing expedition has gotten seriously out of control as far as Annie is concerned, though the rest of the room still seems pretty interested.

Except for Jeff, obviously -- he leans toward Duncan again and mumbles something quietly. She can’t make out what he says, but it almost seems like he’s pleading with his friend.

To no avail, of course.

“Come on, Winger,” Duncan says, waving a dismissive hand. “Man up, will you? Please continue, Biff. What did Winger’s friends have to say?”

“Ms. Perry didn’t really have any idea,” Chad says, reading off his notepad. “Though she assumed that it was ego-driven in some way. Dean Pelton believes that you—“

Jeff snorts. “Are we seriously going to do this? Because I can assure you, Dean Pelton doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

In the row behind her, Annie hears the dean gasp dramatically, like he’s been mortally wounded.

“Fine,” Chad says. “That’s not the interesting one anyway. Would you like to hear what Mr. Nadir had to say?”

Jeff’s eyes dart to Abed, who waves back like they’re spying one another casually across campus and not in the middle of a ridiculous mock-trial. Annie studies Abed now, trying to figure out what he might have told Chad -- something juicy enough to make this jerk think it’s his trump card -- but as usual, Abed gives nothing away.

“Abed’s got a pretty active imagination,” Jeff hedges. “So I’m not sure how much stock I’d put in his guess, either.”

“Well, be that as it may… Mr. Nadir thinks… _actually,_ he said he was pretty certain that your blast of passion was directly related to your feelings for Ms. Edison.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, time seems to do some strange crawling thing that makes Annie painfully aware of every second. She is also fairly certain that she’s having some sort of out-of-body experience, because she can’t feel anything, not the seat beneath her or the floor under her feet, and she wonders if she’s about to just float away into the ether. She is vaguely aware of a dull roaring in her ears, though, which is probably all of the gossip-y murmuring and giggling around her. When she finally manages a breath, all she can do is laugh, because all of this is such a ridiculous joke. Britta looks over at her in alarm, so maybe she is completely hysterical and just doesn’t realize it.

On her other side, Abed doesn’t move at all.

“Like I said,” Jeff grits out, shifting in his chair. “It’s just speculation.”

“Perhaps,” Chad agrees. “But what’s interesting about it is that you claim your feelings for Ms. Edison are no different than your feelings for your other friends, but here is one of those very friends saying that he doesn’t believe that’s true.”

“I guess I need to work on my friendship with Abed, then,” Jeff says flippantly.

And just like that, none of this is all that funny anymore. Instead, it becomes just another humiliation to add to her scorecard. For the hundredth time, she has to sit here and listen to Jeff publicly declare that he feels nothing for her but good old friendship (and maybe some supposedly inappropriate attraction when she wears a sweater that’s a little too tight or low-cut).

She is struck with the alarmingly strong urge to punch that stupid ass Chad right in the nose, because she’s already gotten that message loud and clear, and she doesn’t need to have it painfully driven home again in front of half of Greendale’s student body. She lowers her head, hoping her hair will hide her flushed cheeks.

“Okay,” Chad laughs, acting like he’s going to be a good sport. “So you’re going to stick to this whole ‘friends’ thing? Annie Edison is just a girl you met at Greendale whom you’re friends with, and that’s it?”

“She’s my friend, yeah, but I’m not really—“

“You don’t look out for her, you don’t go out of your way for her, you don’t do anything more than you’d do for any old friend…“

She looks up slightly, just to sneak a glance at Jeff, but her timing is awful because he happens to be looking her way just then, so for one long, agonizing second, their eyes meet. He looks as miserable as she feels, and her chest aches, like there’s a big, gaping wound right in the center.

“Look,” he says calmly. “This doesn’t even have anything to do with the election. So why don’t—“

“And you don’t feel passionately enough about her that you’d be inspired to do all sorts of crazy things… like tear one of the study rooms to shreds, or trash a botany lab, or try to reboot a computer with nothing more than the strength of your feelings for her. Is that right?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” Jeff says, and Annie closes her eyes because she can’t watch any more of this. If it wouldn’t call any more attention to herself, she’d leave right now. “You’re twisting a lot of stuff, and…”

“That’s not the truth, though,” Chad declares. “Is it, Mr. Winger?”

Abed leans in again, tapping Annie’s arm. “Here it comes,” he whispers.

Something about the gleeful tone of his voice makes her open her eyes, and when she does, Jeff is looking right at her once again. For some reason, she can’t seem to look away.

“Isn’t it true that when Ms. Edison says jump, you say, ‘How high’?”?” Chad prods. “Because you’ve been in love with her for years?”

The courtroom erupts like the audience at The Jerry Springer Show, with shouting and cackling laughter and dated expressions of astonishment like, “Oh, no he didn’t!” Maybe she is seriously paranoid, but she has to wonder if Annie Kim put Chad up to this, one last-ditch effort to humiliate her – and sure enough, when she glances across the aisle, the other Annie is grinning smugly, practically eating up the proceedings with a spoon.

Annie looks back at Jeff, who avoids looking in her direction, and opens and closes his mouth several times before he’s able to make any sound. “That’s not really what—“

“So when she told you that she felt threatened by someone more competent earning a position on the committee—“

“She wasn’t _threatened_ ,” Jeff almost laughs. “It wasn’t even—“

“You _jumped_ at the chance to play hero and _rig_ the election for her. Because your feelings for her make it _impossible_ for you to do anything else.”

“You’re really reaching now. I mean, it’s not like—“

“Oh, please,” Chad laughs. “Everyone in this room has seen the way you two carry on. If you think this is some kind of secret, you’re the one who’s reaching.”

Almost in slow motion, Jeff lurches to his feet, rising to his full height in what is probably an attempt to 

be as intimidating as possible. “Look, I get that you’ve got some kind of ax to grind with me,” he grits out, staring Chad down. “But leave Annie out of this. She’s not the—“

“I’m not the one who put her in the middle, Mr. Winger. Just answer the question and we can move on.”

Jeff shakes his head doubtfully, and Annie can feel both Abed and Britta watching her so she does her best not to react. The truth is that she’s so mixed up at the moment that she doesn’t think she understands anything that she’s feeling anyway.

She never should have let Jeff talk her into this.

“We’ll even start easy,” Chad says. “You and Annie Edison have a very close relationship. Is that correct?”

Jeff’s mouth twists into an annoyed frown, but he shrugs, still standing. “Yeah.”

“And because you’re so close, you sometimes go out of your way to help her, right?”

“Sometimes.”

“And it’s probably more than you’d do for your other friends?”

It’s in that moment, Annie thinks, that the fight seems to go out of Jeff. His shoulders slump a little like he’s tired of the whole thing, like he just wants it all to be over, and he gives a barely perceptible nod of his head before he sighs.

“Okay, yeah, maybe, but it’s not—“

“And that’s because you care about her in a passionate way that even Borchert’s computer couldn’t miss. So when she decided that she didn’t like the way things were going with the committee election, you offered to fix it for her… because you love her and you don’t like it very much when she’s unhappy?”

Annie closes her eyes again, wishing she could disappear.

“It’s not like that. It’s not—“

“Because just like _everyone_ here knows about your feelings for Annie, we all know that she’s kind of a control freak,” Chad declares. “And she can’t stand it when she doesn’t get her way.”

“Watch it. That’s not—“

“And she’s prone to tantrums too, I hear, so maybe you didn’t want to see her make a fool of herself again—“

“You don’t have to keep—“

“—in front of the entire school. I mean, it’s happened before, so she should really be used to it, but it probably wouldn’t—“

“Enough,” Jeff snaps, in as loud and booming a voice as she’s ever heard from him, and everything in the room suddenly goes very still and quiet – Annie can sense it even without opening her eyes. “That’s enough,” he says again, calmer this time. “Okay, look… it’s not… You’re right, okay?”

The room stays silent, because no one seems to know exactly what he’s admitting to, Annie included. She looks at Jeff, who’s scratching at the back of his neck like he doesn’t feel comfortable in his own skin, and when he eventually looks her way, he takes a deep breath and nods.

“Not the stuff about rigging the election,” he clarifies. “That’s not… that didn’t happen.”

“So what I am right about then?” Chad demands.

“The other stuff,” Jeff admits. “I feel passionately enough about Annie to reboot Borchert’s damn computer and lose my head all the damn time and…” He trails off, out of steam apparently, and sinks back down into his chair. 

From the corner of her eye, Annie can see Britta staring at her — like she’s the one who just made a very public, very dramatic declaration — but she keeps her gaze stubbornly ahead. Abed, meanwhile, is humming happily, like the drama finished with the exact ending that he was hoping for.

“And probably even enough to break into the dean’s office and tamper with ballots because you knew it was what she wanted,” Chad finishes triumphantly as he strolls back to the prosecution table. “No more questions for this witness.”

The courtroom falls into chaos again, this time even louder than before. Britta is shouting something to her over all the noise and Abed is scribbling furiously in his notebook, but Annie is barely paying attention.

She can’t take her eyes off Jeff, who sits on the stand with his head bent and a hand over his mouth, like he isn't quite sure what else he might let slip.

-x-

Over the years, he’s been humiliated at Greendale so many times that he’s well-acquainted with the feeling. 

The list of his indiscretions doesn’t even contain things that he’s necessarily all that ashamed about after the fact: playing pool in those ridiculous shorts with the obnoxious piping and then completely naked (though really, naked was a seriously good look for him so what’s there to be embarrassed about?), having his ridiculous Real World audition tape shown to the half the school, taking an ax to the study room table like some sort of Patrick Bateman wannabe, and probably a few dozen more stumbles and screw-ups that he can’t even remember anymore.

There’s a big difference between all of those incidents and what happened in this fake courtroom, though.

All those other embarrassments were easy to live down because they were just momentary lapses that didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of his life.

What happened today matters.

It’s a big fucking deal that is going to affect his life for weeks, months, maybe even years.

Which is probably why it all feels like something out of a dream – or more accurately, a nightmare.

It’s almost like an out-of-body experience actually. Like he’s outside himself, looking down on the mess that he’s made – and he has no illusions; he started this fire, even if his asshole of a former student took great delight in fanning the flames – with an almost panoramic view.

He sits in a chair behind the defense table with the makeshift courtroom nearly empty. After Chad tore him to shreds on the stand, the dean intervened and suggested that they recess until tomorrow because apparently Jeff’s confession was enough of a bombshell that everyone needed some time to process it. He tries to shake off the feeling of soul-crushing humiliation. His friends like to call him an egomaniac, but it isn’t arrogance that makes him certain that everyone on campus is talking about him right now, and will be for days.

He wonders if he’s eligible for a sabbatical for the next six months or so.

Beside him, Maya shuffles papers uselessly and clears her throat several times. She hasn’t left his side, even though she obviously doesn’t know what to say. He isn’t in the mood to make anyone else feel better right now, though, so he wishes she would just leave him alone to lick his wounds. It’s been nearly ten minutes since he’s said a word to her, which he thinks is more than enough time for her to get the hint.

“That probably could have gone better,” she says finally, without even a trace of sarcasm.

“You think?”

Maybe he’s a little harsher than he should be – it’s not this poor girl’s fault that all of the messy, twisted contents of his heart became public knowledge, after all – because she flinches a little and starts throwing her stuff into her bag in a hurry.

“I get it,” she says. “You want to be alone. That’s fine. That’s cool. We can talk tomorrow about what else we should—“

“There’s nothing else to do,” he tells her, trying for a softer tone. “I think the case against me speaks for itself. You shouldn’t feel bad, though. You were behind the eight ball from the start.”

She nods and he manages a tight smile as she stands that seems to reassure her a bit.

Once she’s gone and he’s finally alone, he tugs at his tie, pulling it off almost savagely. If he was in his right mind, he would never treat silk so harshly, but he’s got bigger concerns at the moment. He’s always been pretty sure that he’d blow the whole telling-Annie-how-he-feels thing. He just never imagined it would be in such a horrifyingly public way.

It’s kind of like that clichéd nightmare about going to school naked, except he thinks things might have gone a little better if he had actually been naked when he made his announcement.

It couldn’t have hurt, anyway.

He isn’t entirely sure, but he thinks Annie fled the scene as soon as the words left his mouth – or maybe it was a few minutes later. Not that he blames her, really, because he knows that if their roles were reversed, he would have run at the very first opportunity too. When he finally worked up the nerve to look her in the eye, there was an empty seat between Abed and Britta. (Yet another person he’s not quite sure how to face; the revelation that he asked her to marry him and then was so overcome with passionate feelings for another woman just a few hours later that he could restart a fucking computer probably doesn’t make him her favorite person in the world right now. Sure, it’s not like he told Britta that he loved her or anything, but it was still a shitty thing to do considering that he’s known for a long time that he had some pretty real feelings for Annie simmering just beneath the surface, even if he wasn’t entirely aware of the extent of them.)

It was probably just as well that Annie had left, anyway – he has no idea what to say to her, so it might help to have some time before he has to face her again.

But the universe must have a pretty twisted sense of humor because it’s barely a minute later, when he’s slumped down in his seat and tilted his head back to contemplate the watermarked ceiling, that he hears her clear her throat just behind him and he jolts to full awareness.

“I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news,” she says. “Which do you want first?” Her voice is so warm and familiar, with the same old affection that’s always laced through it, that he thinks he might really be dreaming. 

Why would she come back after that embarrassing display? Why would she want anything to do with him after he put her through all of that?

But he turns and she’s standing right there, looking just as unsure as he feels. And just like that, some warm, prickly thing starts to spread through his chest. She’s obviously making a gesture toward putting things right between them, and he’s grateful enough that he can somehow manage a smile.

“Let’s go with the good.”

“Just a few minutes after things… wrapped up in here,” she says, stepping in front of the defense table so she’s opposite him, “Vicki admitted to the dean that Annie Kim bought her vote with tickets to a Beyoncé concert. And that weird guy with the eye patch, Stuart, says she bought his vote with the promise to write all of his International Relations papers for the semester. And after that, the dominoes really fell, with a bunch other students confessing that she bribed them too, so the dean threw her candidacy out – just like that.” Annie shrugs. “Which means _Garrett_ will be joining us on the committee.”

Jeff smirks. “I thought this was the good news.”

She rolls her eyes in that haughty, adorable way that only she can pull off. “It means this whole farce is over,” she says. “And the dean is running around calling you a hero for exposing voter corruption and saving Greendale once again. Though he also called you a hero that time you wore that sweater with the really deep V, so maybe he’s biased...”

He nods. “So what’s the bad news then?”

She lowers her head so a thick wave of her hair falls across her face, but he can tell that she’s fighting off a smile, like she wants desperately to laugh even if it’s inappropriate, which leaves her with an expression that’s pretty close to a grimace.

Shit.

It must be seriously bad news.

“Leonard filmed your entire cross-examination with his phone, and I heard him asking Abed for editing tips… so you’re probably going to wind up on YouTube.”

He nods, matching her grimace – there is definitely no hope that this is all going to blow over anytime soon. “With the way my luck’s going today,” he says, “that’s to be expected.”

Annie nods too, but she drops her gaze to her feet, like her simple black shoes are the most interesting thing she’s ever seen. He gets it, because he’s having a hard time maintaining eye contact with her, too. He feels completely exposed, vulnerable even, and that’s not a feeling he’s used to at all.

But this is Annie, he reminds himself. She isn’t in the habit of kicking him when he’s down -- she’s more than proven that over the years.

When she looks up at him suddenly, from beneath those fluttery lashes, she seems a little shy and unsure too.

“That’s probably why normal people usually just admit how they feel to the person in question,” she says, keeping her tone light -- she even tilts her head and gifts him with a soft smile. “You know, so they _don’t_ make a big public scene out of the whole thing that embarrasses them for weeks.”

“ _Weeks_?” he chuckles. “You’re underestimating these people – try months.” Her smile widens and she nods again. “But see, there’s a flaw in your logic, Annie. Because I’m not normal -- I’m extraordinary.”

She laughs, shaking her head almost affectionately. “It’s good to know your ego hasn’t suffered too much.”

He nods, and they’re both silent for a moment. Then something about her expression changes, becomes just a bit tighter and more forced, and he’s suddenly terrified of whatever it is that she’s about to say.

The strange thing is, he doesn’t really know what he _wants_ her to say. He wants to know that he isn’t going to lose her, that they’re going to be okay no matter what happens, but he can’t seem to get any more specific than that. Annie toys with a pencil that Maya left behind, rolling it back and forth near the edge of the table as if to distract herself, before looking up at him.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” she finally asks, in a small, fragile voice that tightens something in his chest again.

He hesitates because he isn’t exactly sure how to answer. He wants to say yes, because he can’t imagine that he would have been able to carry these feelings around inside him without letting them see the light of day for that much longer; but he also knows that he’s a coward, and there’s a good chance that he would have put off it for years – until she was celebrating her tenth wedding anniversary to Mr. All-American Good Guy, with their 2.5 perfect kids and adorable Golden Retriever, at their summer house on the lake.

“I think so,” is what he finally says. “I _hope_ so.”

She sighs, and when she tilts her head, her eyes are shining a bit, like she’s just cried or is ready to at any moment. “Is the idea of feeling that way about me so horrifying that you’d rather just pretend you didn’t? Is it really _that_ bad?”

He shakes his head without thinking. “No, no. Of course not. It’s not… it really doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

She scoffs. “I think it has _something_ to do with me.”

He smiles, because even now, in the face of all this awkwardness, she can still be indignant when she isn’t given her due – and he loves that about her.

He loves her.

That’s the simple truth.

“Well, yeah,” he agrees. “Obviously. But what I mean is that, I know you pretty well and I know myself, and just because I feel the way I do, it doesn’t mean that I would… that I’m any good for you. That this would work out any way but badly.”

Annie crosses her arms over her chest, scowling down at him in a way that does nothing to diminish how pretty she is. “And you don’t think I should get a say in that?” she demands. “You just get to decide for the both of us?”

He lowers his head, feeling ashamed all over again -- because he does have a habit of doing that, thinking he has to protect Annie from himself, or from her own feelings, like she isn’t capable of taking care of business all by herself. But that’s not the only thing that kept him from telling her, and he knows it.

“No,” he tells her. “You’re right. It’s not like… What it really comes down to is that I’m scared to rock the boat. To screw things up between us beyond repair.”

She nods slowly, but he doesn’t think she is agreeing with him so much as taking the information in, processing it that precise, careful way she has.

“That’s why you’ve been acting so weird the past few months,” she murmurs under her breath, like she’s talking to herself.

“I haven’t been acting weird,” he protests.

She laughs darkly. “Please. You’ve been treating me like I’m made of glass or something.”

He cocks his back and forth a couple of times, trying to do a mental rundown of the last few months, of everything he’s said and done, of all the things he hasn’t said or done. “Okay, fine,” he concedes. “Maybe I’ve been a little weird. I’ve had these feelings and I couldn’t find a way to tell you. I was probably overcompensating.”

“I started to think…” She shakes her head, trailing off. “Never mind.”

“No.” He sits up a little straighter in his chair. “You started to think what?”

She lifts her shoulders half-heartedly and sighs. “I thought it was pity.”

He squints at her in confusion. “Why would I pity you?”

She tugs a little at the hem of her sweater, her cheeks red in the dimly lit room. “Because I made a fool myself down in Borchert’s lab. You know, with that stupid speech... it was pretty obvious how I felt.”

She’s right, of course. That was probably the precise moment he realized exactly how much she felt for him, that it wasn’t some silly crush that she still hadn’t outgrown. But she hadn’t made a fool of herself; she’d been brave and strong, something he was apparently incapable of. Which was probably another reason why she didn’t need him getting mixed up in her life any more than he already was.

“Annie, you didn’t make a fool out of yourself. Trust me. But I think it’s been proven pretty publicly here today that I did.”

She smiles a little, looking pleased. “If it’s any consolation,” she says. “You’re not the only one who was humiliated today. I mean, apparently everyone at this school thinks I’m a control freak who throws tantrums whenever she doesn’t get her way… and then cons you into cleaning up my messes for me.”

He smirks. “Actually, I think the narrative isn’t so much that you _con_ me into it but that I can’t help myself from doing it.” He pauses, reminding himself to keep his tone light. “You know, because I’m so crazy in love with you.”

When she looks at him now, her expression is strangely serious and he panics all over again, because he has no idea what she’s thinking. He is terrified of disappointing her, and right now, the entire situation seems like a minefield – one wrong step and he’ll wind up blowing everything to bits.

But he wants her, too; it’s impossible to pretend otherwise anymore.

It’s a fucking mess.

“I don’t know what to do,” she confesses, as if she’s read his mind. “Part of me really wants to slug you for all of this… and another part of me really wants to kiss you. But then there’s this really big part of me that just wants to run away and pretend none of this happened, so everything can go back to normal.”

He nods, smiling almost despite himself. “I might deserve it, but let’s try to avoid the slugging thing. ‘Cause I’ve been on the receiving end of one of your punches and it’s not much fun.”

He grins, but his joke doesn’t coax so much as a forced smile out of her – she actually looks like she might cry again. He understands, because it feels like the fate of everything that means anything to them is hanging in the balance, all depending on what they do next.

It is terrifying.

“Hey, listen,” he says, reaching out to rub her arm. “The truth is that you don’t have to do anything. We can pretend this didn’t happen. Go back to the status quo, and just—“

“We can’t do that, Jeff,” she whispers. “You know we can’t.”

And he nods wearily, because he does know that – it is impossible to unknow what they know. It’s just that right now, he’d say just about anything to make Annie feel better.

Maybe Chad was right about him. Maybe he’s physically incapable of not trying to take care of her, of not trying to do what makes her happy… or at least a little less unhappy.

He just isn’t sure where that leaves him right now.

“I think I need some time,” Annie tells him. “I mean, you’ve had months to take all of this in, that there are these… mutual feelings between us. I’ve only had twenty minutes. So I think I need to catch up.”

He takes a deep breath and nods. “That’s fair.”

She cocks her head dubiously. “Really? You’re okay with just letting things… settle for a while?”

“Are you kidding?” he asks, with a grin. “Putting off something difficult until a later date? That’s my bread and butter, Annie.”

This time, the joke lands, and she laughs quietly, nodding her head in agreement. He’s always going to be terrified of what happens next, but maybe knowing she’s in on it with him, that she’ll help make him some kind of decision, will make it easier to take.

“Okay, then,” she says. “So I’ll see you tomorrow...”

She smiles and nods absently, like they’re saying goodbye at the end of any random day and not on the occasion of him embarrassingly blurting out his feelings for her in front of everyone they know. He smiles back at her as she steps toward the door, and tells himself that maybe tomorrow, it’ll all feel easier and the answer to what they do next will suddenly become clear and they’ll be in a much better place than they are right now.

Or maybe it’ll all be just as confused.

It could really go either way.

He’ll worry about it tomorrow, though. Because nothing is going to be fixed today.

But Annie stops halfway to the door and turns on her heel, barreling toward him suddenly, like someone’s lit a fire under her. She steps in close, right between his legs, and he’s still sitting so she is towering over him for once and he has to tilt his head back to meet her eyes.

“Annie, you don’t—“

She cuts him off by grabbing fistfuls of his collar and tugging him up to meet her mouth.

She kisses him hard and desperately, like maybe it’s been more than five years since the last time, like she’s taking no prisoners, and it’s almost overwhelming to have her moving against him like a live wire, licking her way into his mouth with a kind of hunger that catches him off-guard. He grabs at her waist because he needs some way to steady himself – and wants to keep her pressed against him for as long as possible.

Kissing her now isn’t anything like it was the last time. 

Back then, it all happened on pure instinct. Now, he’s spent years thinking about, imagining it, and there are so many expectations – which she somehow blows apart, moving her mouth against his in a way that is demanding and bruising, like she’s angry and happy and sad and excited all at once. His hand slips beneath the hem of her sweater, and the warm skin of her lower back burns against his fingertips, making him wonder if all of her feels that hot.

That seems to jolt her back to alertness, though, and she starts to slow down. When she finally pulls away, he’s breathing hard and feeling a little dizzy, especially when she grins, all smart and knowing.

“The part of me that wanted to kiss you kind of won out for a minute,” she whispers. She rubs her thumb against his lower lip and shrugs. “Besides, one of us has to be brave… and it’s obviously not going to be you.”

She straightens and smooths her sweater back into place, apparently ready to head out once again – but he’s not going to let her get away that easy. He may be a little dazed, but he’s not a damned idiot, so he stands and reaches out to cup her face, pulling her back in for another kiss. 

What’s funny is that she doesn’t seem surprised – she springs up on her toes so he doesn’t have to stoop quite so much, and her hands slip under his jacket to grip at his shirt and hold him close. He can only tangle a hand in her hair and just try to keep up, even as she steals his breath.

It seems like nothing but a supreme act of will power that he hasn’t spent every day of the past year (or two, three, four, or five? All the way back to the beginning?) kissing her like this.

When they drift apart this time, they’re both breathless and she’s still wearing that maddening, know-it-all grin that makes him want to kiss her all over again right this minute to make up for lost time.

“I can be brave sometimes,” he tells her. “With proper incentive anyway.”

She tilts her head and considers him carefully for a moment, but her smile doesn’t falter. “You know,” she practically purrs, toying with his collar. “I’m probably still going to want to punch you later.”

He grins and leans in to kiss her again – because he’s pretty sure he can live with that. 


End file.
